The annual Hanteo Music Awards (HMAs) will be held on Feb. 17 and 18 at Dongdaemun Design Plaza in Jung District, central Seoul, the event's organizer, Hanteo Global, said Wednesday.

Voting for award categories will begin after the commencement of the awards ceremony via Whosfan and the company's Twitter account. Whosfan is a global fandom platform developed by Hanteo Global.

"We intend to promote the creativity and diversity of K-pop around the world," Kwak Young-ho, Hanteo Global's founder and CEO, said in a press release. "We hope to move toward a new direction of K-pop, sharing the power and passion of music."

HMAs started in 2021, and its inaugural ceremony was held online due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The first in-person ceremony took place last year, and this will be the second time it's held offline.

Hanteo Global, founded in 1993, is a music data aggregator that releases the Hanteo charts.


BY LEE CHAE-MIN [lee.chaemin1@joongang.co.kr]